Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar 1)

He managed to swallow and commanded his legs to move forward. She was, quite simply, breathtaking. Everything else in the bar faded into the background, as though they were only stage props set for her.

Myron approached. “Come here often?” he asked.

She looked at him like he was an old man jogging in a Speedo. “Original line,” she said. “Very creative.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But what a delivery.” He smiled. Winningly, he thought.

“Glad you think so.” She turned back to her drink. “Please leave.”

“Playing hard to get?”

“Get lost.”

Myron grinned. “Stop it already. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Pardon me.”

“It’s obvious to everyone in this bar.”

“Oh?” she remarked. “Do enlighten.”

“You want me. Bad.”

She almost smiled. “That obvious, huh?”

“Don’t blame yourself. I’m irresistible.”

“Uh-huh. Catch me if I swoon.”

“I’m right here, sweetcakes.”

She sighed deeply. She was as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as the day she had walked out on him. He hadn’t seen her in four years, but it still hurt to think about her. It hurt even more to look at her. Their weekend at Win’s house on Martha’s Vineyard came to him. He could still remember the way the ocean breeze blew her hair, the way she tilted her head when he spoke, the way she looked and felt in his old sweatshirt. Simple fragile bliss. The knot in his stomach tightened.

“Hello, Myron,” she said.

“Hello, Jessica. You’re looking well.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“My office is upstairs. I practically live here.”

She smiled. “Oh, that’s right. You represent athletes now, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Better than working all that undercover stuff?”

Myron did not bother answering. She glanced at him but did not hold the gaze.

“I’m waiting for someone,” Jessica said suddenly.

“A male someone?”

“Myron …”

“Sorry. Old reflex.” He looked at her left hand. His heart back-flipped when he saw no rings. “You never married what’s-his-name?” he asked.

“Doug.”

“That’s right. Doug. Or was it Dougie?”

“You’re making fun of someone’s name?”

Myron shrugged. She had a point. “So what happened to him?”

Her eyes studied a beer ring on the bar. “It wasn’t about him,” she said. “You know that.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it. Rehashing the bitter past was not going to do any good. “So what brings you back to the city?”

“I’m going to be teaching a semester at NYU.”

His heart sped up again. “You moved back to Manhattan?”

“Last month.”

“I’m really sorry about your father’s—”

“We got your flowers,” she interrupted.

“I wanted to do more.”

“Better you didn’t.” She finished her drink. “I have to go. It was nice seeing you.”

“I thought you were meeting someone.”

“My mistake, then.”

“I still love you, you know.”

She stood, nodded.

“Let’s try again,” he said.

“No.”

She walked away.

“Jess?”

“What?”

He considered telling her about her sister’s picture in the magazine. “Can we have lunch sometime?” he asked. “Just talk, okay?”

“No.”

Jessica turned and left him. Again.

Windsor Horne Lockwood III listened to Myron’s story with his fingers steepled. Steepling looked good on Win, a lot better than on Myron. When Myron finished, Win said nothing for a few moments, doing more of that steepled-hands-concentration thing. Finally he rested his hands on the desk.

“My, my, haven’t we had a special day?”

Myron rented his space from his old college roommate, Windsor Horne Lockwood III. People often said that Myron looked nothing like his name—an observation Myron took as high praise; Windsor Horne Lockwood III, however, looked exactly like his name. Blond hair, perfect length, parted on the right side. His features were classical patrician, almost too handsome, like something crafted in porcelain.

His attire was always thoroughbred prep—pink shirts, polo shirts, monogrammed shirts, khaki pants, golf (read, ugly) pants, white bucks (Memorial Day to Labor Day) or wing tips (Labor Day to Memorial Day) on his feet. Win even had that creepy accent, the one that did not originate from any particular geographical location as much as from certain prep schools like Andover and Exeter. (Win had gone to Exeter.) He played a mean game of golf. He had a three handicap and was the fifth-generation member of stuffy Merion Golf Club in Philadelphia and third-generation at equally stuffy Pine Valley in southern New Jersey. He had a perennial golf tan, one of those where the color could be found only on the arms (short-sleeve shirts) and a V-shape in the neck (open alligator shirt), though Win’s lily-white skin never tanned. It burned.

Win was full-fledged whitebread. He made star quarterback Christian Steele look like a Mediterranean houseboy.

Myron had hated Windsor on sight. Most people did. Win was used to it. People liked to form and keep an immediate impression. In Win’s case that impression was old money, elitist, arrogant—in a phrase, a flaming asshole. There was nothing Win could do about it. People who relied solely on first impressions meant little to him.

Win gestured to the magazine on his desk. “You chose not to tell Jessica about this?”

Myron stood, paced, and then sat back down. “What was I going to say? ‘Hi, I love you, come back to me, here’s a photo of your supposedly dead sister advertising a sex phone in a porno mag?’ ”

Win thought a moment. “I’d refine the wording a bit,” he said.

He flipped through the porno rag, his eyebrow arched as if to say Hmmm. Myron watched. He had decided not to tell Win about Chaz Landreaux or the incident in the garage. Not yet anyway. Win had a funny way of reacting when someone tried to hurt Myron. It wasn’t always pretty. Better to save it for later, when Myron would know exactly how he wanted to handle Roy O’Connor. And Aaron.

Win dropped the magazine on his desk. “Shall we begin?”